A Fork in the Road
by hpbestbook
Summary: Everyone has to have time to figure things out and Harry Potter is no exception to that rule.


* * *

A Fork in the Road

By hpbestbook

A/N- You know those two weeks in the beginning of Half Blood Prince in which Harry make the decision to move on with his life and accept that Sirius is dead? Not only that but he is also going to try and give his best against Voldemort and the Death Eaters? Those seem like they would be an important two weeks for Harry to get through. So here they are, or how I imagine them at least.

* * *

So, this is how it is going to be.

He knew the moment he stepped into Dudley's second bedroom (because he never really thought of it as his own) and laid down on the lumpy cot, that he was going to lay there, stewing in his own misery and staring out into the misty morning, day, and then night for as many days as his body could stand it. He also knew he wasn't going to eat very much or be that much fun to be around, so perhaps, he thought, it was good that he was with the Dursleys, because he didn't care if he was grumpy with them.

So Harry lay back with his head cupped in his hands behind him and stared out into the abnormally cold and misty summer and listened to his Uncle ask his Aunt what was wrong with the boy as they wondered into the kitchen from living room to start dinner. Her shrill reply was muffled and then unheard as they went into the kitchen.

Then it was quite. He could almost feel relaxed, laying there in the dim light and the quiet, and he started to drift into sleep a little, just a little, then quite a lot and then he saw Sirius' face full of laughing defiance, words of ridicule on his lips, he opens is mouth to say something…

"BOY! If you're going to eat you have to come down here yourself because I'm not bringing food up to you!" His Aunt's shrill screech jerked him awake like a bolt of lightening. He slumped back onto his bed, not bothering to respond to his aunt's words, and stared out the window again. He heard his aunt's grumbling and shuffling back into the kitchen.

He stared out the window again, this time not remotely relaxed. Sure, he was still stretched across his bed and sure, his arms were still limp by his sides but his face was tense, his eyebrows scrunched together, his teeth clinched, his mind on Sirius' laughing face. He wasn't going to laugh again, words weren't going to pass though his lips ever again, he wasn't going to bark out anymore laughter again and because of that, Harry didn't know what to do.

He contemplated the permanence of it. He had lost his parents at a young age and knew not all that long afterward that he would never have them back, but it didn't feel the same. He had no real idea about what his parents were like or how they would have been as his parents, and most of the grief he felt when he thought of them was from having that knowledge taken away from him, for never having them.

But with Sirius it was different. He wasn't just going to miss the promise of a family he had dreamt about since he was thirteen when Sirius first offered him a home; he was going to miss the man himself. Not only did he have a promise of a future taken away, but he also had a real person, not just an idea or a hope, taken from him. A real person who had affected his life but now no longer could.

Harry felt a tear down the side of his face and let out a sigh of impatience and wiped it away with the heel of his hand. He had had enough of that line of thought and got up, popping open his trunk with his foot in search of some sort of entertainment. He looked into his trunk for a minute, not really seeing anything, but not really knowing why, and also not caring too much. But it came to him why all the things in his trunk all seemed like dark blobs after a few more moments and he shook his head at his own stupidity at not noticing that it had gotten dark outside and turned on his light.

For the next three hours, he read. He tried to read almost every book in his trunk (his hands automatically sliding over any potions or history books) the first book he started was his tried and true Quidditch Through the Ages and found that after a half an hour, his once thought to be fascinating book turned out to keep his attention about as well as one of Binn's lectures. He then started and deemed 10 other books (covering everything from Care of Magical Creatures to Transfiguration) beyond boring and threw them in little fits of restlessness, boredom, and disappointment into different corners of the room.

He then began to pace.

He paced for another two hours. He tried to focus his thoughts on his friends, on what they might be doing now, on funny things they had done in the past, on the brave things they did in the Department of Mysteries and how good of friends they were to stick with him through that whole fiasco. He then started to think about the prophecy but quickly stopped. That just made him anxious, so very, very anxious.

Then he focused on his friends again, on the pride he felt for them in the Department of Mysterious and in the D.A. He thought of the pride he felt in the D.A., on their accomplishments. He tried to remember that feeling and he almost did, but the steady throb of the hole Sirius left behind drowned out the sparks of feeling he could remember. He sighed and turned off his light, with his clothes still on he laid down again, looking out of the dark window and seeing nothing, though knowing full well why this time.

He dreamt of laughing faces fading into nothing.

* * *

The next day he woke up to the sound of tapping. He rolled over to ignore it but it was very persistent and eventually Hedwig added her own irritated hoots at being woken up and Harry decided it couldn't be ignored anymore. Rolling over to grab his glasses he felt something dig into the side of his face and opened his eyes, he could see well out of one but not the other and after a disorientating moment he realized that he had his glasses on.

Hedwig gave a rather loud hoot (almost a screech really) and the tapping was still insistent, so grumbling, he straightened his glasses and looked to find a Daily Prophet delivery owl looking quite grumpy flapping outside his window. He paid the owl the money it wanted and sat down in the chair by his desk and began to read the rag he would have to unfortunately depend on for information for however long he was in this hellhole.

Rather much to his surprise he found something interesting within three seconds of really looking at it. The article title read Harry Potter: The Chosen One? Harry groaned knowing that he wasn't really going to like this article but knowing since it was about him, that he would have to read it.

Much to his annoyance he found it almost accurate. How in the world would they have gotten wind of the prophecy's existence? What would people expect of him now? Would they start demanding that him and Voldemort have some sort of showdown? To get the war over with before it even really starts? The image of cloaked witches and wizards coming for him on Privet Drive with torches and pitchforks demanding that he fight Voldemort right then was a ridiculous one and he snorted.

Halfway through his snort the door opened to reveal the walrus like man who was Vernon Dursley.

"Something funny, boy?" His uncle said looking disdainfully at the newspaper with a moving picture of Harry on the front cover. At realizing that the picture was of Harry, Vernon looked a little surprised and opened his mouth to ask him why he would be on the front of a paper but thought better of it when he figured that the explanation would probably involve freak things.

"I want it made clear that you will not be stomping around at all hours of the morning again, do you understand? You kept your Aunt and I up with the endless noise and I won't have it happen again." He said, trying to sound threatening. Harry thought it a funny sort of sad that he was ever intimidated by this moron. He half wanted to ask him what he would do about it if he continued to pace late into the night anyway, but realized that would cause his uncle to stay longer and didn't really care enough to get in a fight over it.

"Sure thing Uncle Vernon." Harry said, shrugging and looking back to the newspaper. His uncle opened his mouth to say something again, but snapped it shut and instead glared at Harry before slamming the door behind him.

And so the days went.

The pattern to his day didn't change. Harry would wake up, pay the Daily Prophet owl and read the newspaper cover to cover so that he didn't miss some slight detail that would mean something to him but not to the newspaper. On most days the newspaper didn't have anything interesting in it, not a damned thing of relevance, but on some rare days there would be something that actually mattered, like Scrimgeour taking over the office. He seemed much more proactive the Fudge but Harry really had no knowledge of if the man was good or not. But he had to be better than Fudge.

Then there was that ridiculous self defense pamphlets that the ministry gave out in the newspaper. It had no good information in it, which in it's own way was very telling to Harry who saw this as a sign that the ministry didn't know what to do anymore than the average citizen, which wasn't all that pleasant of a thought.

After reading the newspaper he would stare out the window while lying on his bed, usually not thinking of anything at all. Sometimes he would dose and sometimes he would simply lay there and wonder when he would stop feeling like something in him was missing but still somehow had the ability to throb. Something that remained more constant than Harry's dull schedule was that ache that was always coloring the world around him more gray than clouds outside ever could.

Sometimes he would try to read but found that in the end that was futile as well. He would sometimes rouse himself enough to get a bag of crisps or an apple, but never enough for a full meal, but never even close enough to make himself eat at the table with the Dursleys. He would, on the odd energy burst, also take a shower and brush his teeth, but even hygiene had taken a back seat to the ache that so consumed him. But at least he went to the bathroom in the bathroom, he wasn't quiet depressed enough to go in a corner or something; the apathy wasn't consuming to that point.

But on the whole Harry spent most of his time thinking. About stuff he really rather not think about at all, but his mind wouldn't leave them alone and since his mind is where he spent most of his time, he didn't have much choice but to think of Sirius, of the Department of Mysteries, of the prophecy, of his friends injuries and of Voldemort and of Bellatrix LeStrange. The last two were the only thoughts whose emotion overpowered that of the ach in him. He settled somewhere past hate when it came to them, it wasn't so much an irrational passion but a cold fury. If someone were to ask him (not that anyone here talked to him) if he would really want Voldemort and Bellatrix to suffer and die he would tell them yes, not with a blinding rage, but with a cold certainty.

But after awhile even his hate for them became too much and he drifted back to the constant ache, the boredom, and the apathy.

It was a week and a day before this cycle came to any sort of an end.

* * *

Madam Bones was dead. The fierce, fair, intelligent, women who surely had lots of power and knowledge was dead. And of all the things to get Harry thinking this was the most influential. Harry was almost sixteen. He had been through a lot in his short life and had more experience than a lot of adult wizards could say they had, but he was still only sixteen. He hadn't even graduated yet, he wasn't all the great of a student, and he wasn't tremendously powerful, so how in the hell was he supposed to survive if was attacked again (which was very likely to happen at some point) if Madam Bones was so easily killed? Not to say she didn't put up a fight, but she still died, didn't she?

Harry was at a loss as to how he was supposed to do any of the things people wanted him to do but he figured there was someway, and that he would find it, and that Dumbledore (being Dumbledore) would have some sort of plan, some kind of knowledge that Harry (if he were smart and used it correctly) would be able to use and he could, he believed, come out on top of this. But if his faith in Dumbledore was wrong (and that was also possible) he would take as many of the bastards as could with him if he were to be killed. At that thought Harry felt some other emotion than the pain of Sirius's death and the occasional hate for Bellatrix and Voldemort, he felt determination.

He wasn't going to go and die and let the bastards smile about it. If he were to die in some battle somewhere, he didn't want his death to be thought of as a victory, but as a day to remember that the light side had something to it and serve as a reminder that they were not invincible and that even his death would cost them something.

And with this burst of energy that this new found determination gave him, Harry took a shower, ate a sandwich and brushed his teeth. He even remembered to take off his glasses before sleeping.

He dreams were of him dying, but not in the noble, taking names sort of way he decided he could live with if it should happen that he would be killed, but with his friends' bodies around him and with death eaters laughter as they surrounded him. Taunted him. Then Voldemort stepped into the circle and told Harry that death might not even hurt, but he wouldn't know, not having ever died. Then there was a flash of green light illuminating Sirius's dead face, before striking him.

Harry woke up gasping.

He rolled over and put on his glasses and waited about five minutes before the Daily Prophet owl tapped on his window. He got up and read the paper, then tried to read some books, found them as boring as he did the day before and laid down again to stare out the window, but as he lay there, the ache still present, he realized that even with that very demoralizing dream, he still felt (much to his surprise) very determined to take out Voldemort and his band of merry men, maybe even more than he did yesterday.

He also felt incredible bored. He really didn't want to stare out the window anymore, but he didn't know what else to do and remained were he was, but yet still very far away from where he used to be.

Two days latter he got a letter form Dumbledore. He read what it had to say, somewhat suspecting that he would have to stay the whole summer or something, but was very pleasantly surprised to find out that he would be leaving in three days. Then he felt something else again, besides the ache and the determination, he felt hope. He felt like…he had enough now, now that he knew he wasn't going to be staring out that damned window anymore. It was very hard to believe, since he was so certain that was going to be his fate, starring out the window and laying there for the rest of the summer.

So this isn't going to be how it is.

He felt tremendously better, knowing that now. He would hate to stare out that window for the rest of his life. He would hate to feel only this constant ache for the rest of his life too. So, then and there, it came to him that he didn't have to, that he didn't want to, and that Sirius wouldn't want him to either. The ache was still there, just as strong as it always was, but it wasn't everything now, and that would have to be enough.

Maybe he would be able to read now, to pass the time. He tried, but the books were still really boring, and so he sat at his desk, looking out the window, or at night laying there looking out the window, this time seeing the street lamps and the roof of the neighbors house and wondering if Dumbledore was really going to be picking him up. He dared to hope, but not enough to pack, realizing it might just break him if he had to unpack if Dumbledore didn't come when he said he would and then to have to stare out that window for longer.

The night that Dumbledore was going to come was the most restless time for Harry for the whole two weeks he had been there. He wanted to pace, but decided to keep his word to Vernon and just sat in his chair, until sleep over came him and he feel asleep with his face pressed up against the glass.

He woke with a start because of the sudden darkness, and knew Dumbledore was here. He looked out the window one last time, then raced downstairs.

* * *


End file.
